The allure of the gnarled

The lover of nature,
whose perceptions have been trained in the Alps, in Italy, Germany,
or New England, in the Appalachians or Cordilleras, in Scotland or
Colorado, would enter this strange region with a shock, and dwell
there for a time with a sense of oppression, and perhaps with
horror. Whatsoever things he had learned to regard as beautiful and
noble he would seldom or never see... Whatsoever might be bold or
striking would at first seem only grotesque…

Clarence Edward Dutton
The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District (1882)

On my first trip into
Canyon Country, I remember driving past a glorious, lone aspen tree
in front of a flavorfully colored rock along Highway 40 around
Massadona, Colo. The autumn leaves shook like sheaths of golden
paper, and I sensed that I was in for something new. I headed
toward Dinosaur National Monument. I had read a lot about the area,
so I was aware of its recent and not-so-recent past: David
Brower’s crusade to save Echo Park from dam builders in the
1950s; John Wesley Powell’s 1869 exploration of the Green and
Colorado rivers; Ute and Fremont natives stalking game and carving
petroglyphs during the last two millennia; apatosaurs and allosaurs
coming and going 150 million years ago.

In the national
monument, I drove out to Harpers Corner and hiked the short trail
that leads to Echo Park and the confluence of the Yampa and Green
rivers. The canyons were overwhelming, bewildering, like a
lithograph by M.C. Escher. But the aspen tree I’d seen on the
way in turned out to be a tease: The cliff tops and benches were
studded instead with piñon pines and Utah junipers.

The trees leaned awkwardly, like jaded old men. They reminded me of
Statler and Waldorf, the grumpy duo from The Muppet Show. I
imagined them mad from the heat and waiting — hoping —
to die in their balcony seats over the amphitheater of Echo Park.

I would learn later that the characterization isn’t
entirely unfair. Piñons and junipers exist under conditions
that would warp even the most rugged species: scarce precipitation
that typically falls in intense storms with ferocious winds and
hail; hydrophobic soil that deprives plants of most of the water
that does fall; famished wild creatures of all sizes that will feed
on any pine nut, juniper berry, needle, or bark they can sink their
teeth into; disease, insects, fire.

As a result, the
lives of piñons and junipers are isolated, their forms
disfigured. Beneath the desert crust, their roots stretch out like
the arms of derelicts reaching for bread crumbs. Extremely dry
seasons may even force junipers to cut off water and nutrient flow
to a limb to protect the rest of the tree, leaving a withered
appendage.

Standing there in Echo Park, I thought the
piñons and junipers beyond solace or charity. On my way back
to the car, I reveled in the crushing sound of the rivers, the
flowering rabbitbrush and the songs of lark sparrows and canyon
wrens. But I failed to see the allure of the piñons and
junipers.

… But time
would bring a gradual change. Some day he would suddenly become
conscious that outlines which at first seemed harsh and trivial
have grace and meaning; that forms which seemed grotesque are full
of dignity; that magnitudes which had added enormity to coarseness
have become replete with strength and even majesty…

I didn’t return to
Canyon Country for two and a half years, but not because of any
lingering distaste for the piñons and junipers. Actually, I
had become fascinated with the desert and the vegetation. I wanted
to revisit the landscape the way you want to sneak another peek at
your lunatic great-uncle sleeping standing up in the spare bedroom
of your parents’ house.

That next trip, deep in the
backcountry of Zion National Park’s backcountry, the
piñons and junipers struck me differently. The trees still
looked miserable, but I recognized a stalwart stoicism in them that
had eluded me earlier. Perhaps it was my own isolation, miles into
the sagebrush and yucca, utterly exposed to the desert. If the
piñons and junipers were hermits in this wasteland, there was
a bond among them born from long endurance.

At first
glance, the trees had seemed like grumpy old men, but now I saw
them as defiant, willful curmudgeons. I imagined them raising hell
in this perverse, redrock nursing home of an ecosystem, poking
branches under the wings and breasts of birds, tripping deer with
their roots.

In a world of brutality, the piñons and
junipers had the strength to endure. The species have lasted in the
desolation for millions of years; individual trees persist for
centuries. Nothing — not Brower or Powell, the Utes or even
the dinosaurs — knows more about how to survive in the
eternally forbidding environs of Canyon Country than the
piñons and the junipers. I had found the allure.

These days, I live on Colorado’s plains, beyond the foothills
of the Rockies. In my free time, I alternately visit mountain
meadows and desert canyons. Autumn aspens still steal my breath.
But with the piñon pines and junipers, I can crush their
needles in my palm, brush my fingertips along their scraggly bark,
and marvel at a perseverance I can only vainly hope to emulate. And
then I’ll trip on some hideous root and look around for the
source of a haunting laughter that not even a demented magpie could
chortle.